Brenda Wigsmon of Hammond has found a unique way to spend quality time with her grandchildren.
Each Monday night, she delivers them to St. Catherine of Siena School in Hessville for their youth choir practice. Then she goes across the hall to participate in a newly-formed adult choir. Both activities were organized by a group called Books, Brushes and Bands for Education, or BBB4E.
“How many opportunities can I have like this?” Wigsmon said at a recent rehearsal. “The kids and I can talk about our choir experiences on our way here and on the way home. And, at the end of this program in a couple of months, we’ll be performing on the same stage.”
BBB4E is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of connecting families to educational opportunities through the arts. Those opportunities are offered with their orchestra, band, or choir. The core belief is enrichment, exposure and experience are available through the visual, literary and musical arts, and they are essential to the potential of every child.
Now, an adult counterpart choir has been added.
This year’s first eight-week session for those 18 years and older attracted nine area residents for the choir’s pilot program.
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“I love to sing and there’s not many low-cost activities around for adults,” said new choir member Astrid Arnold of Hammond, whose two children perform in the BBB4E Youth Choir. “I believe kids being involved in music opens their mind to creativity. It gives a good grounding in the arts. And that’s for adults too. I want to be a good role model.”
The idea to add “grown-ups” to the organization’s repertoire of children’s musical education came about last fall when adult chaperons were on a trip with the children as they were traveling to a performance on a bus.
“They just started singing and the kids wanted to know how they knew all the words,” said Shelley Lohr, BBB4E administrative assistant and also a new adult choir member. “Then someone said why don’t we start an adult choir? And so we did.”
The first session in March went well, with the nine members meeting their new choir director, Bryan Johnson of Chicago.
Johnson brings much musical experience to the group, according to Michelle Golden, founder and president of BBB4E.
“Brian is amazing,” she said. ‘”He has such magnificent keyboard skills and can transform the music to suit the voices that are part of the group.”
Golden said all skill levels are invited to join the adult choir.
“We are not asking choir members to fit into a mold,” she said. “We work with them as they come to us.”
Currently teaching music at several Chicago schools, Johnson said the adult choir adds an intergenerational presence to the BBB4E curriculum.
“This (choir experience) is wonderful for the adults,” he added. “It gives a vehicle for expressing experience and helps to unwind from the day.”
Indeed, at a recent practice, he first warmed up his members with fun exercises and light back tapping on each other as they moved in a conga line.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” said new member Tiffany Gilmore of Hammond, as she followed the others. “Joining the choir is a lot of fun. Everyone works well together.”
More information about Books, Brushes and Bands for Education is at 219-932-3232.
Sue Ellen Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.